


a god awful small affair

by XioNin



Series: Starman: Sander's Song [7]
Category: WTFock | Skam (Belgium)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Pining, Toxic Relationship, canon compliant through ep 5, sander pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-18 04:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21505165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XioNin/pseuds/XioNin
Summary: Sander tries to hit the reset button, only nothing will ever be the same.
Relationships: Robbe Ijzermans/Sander Driesen, Sander Driesen/Britt Ingelbrecht
Series: Starman: Sander's Song [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533593
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65





	a god awful small affair

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Bowie's "Life On Mars"

“It’s better this way,” Britt said for the dozenth time.

She worked on her homework while Sander sat on the floor in her room, a sketchpad in his hands. The sheet glaring up at him was blank. There was only one image in his mind, one face, and he didn’t dare draw it. Couldn’t bear to.

“You get that, don’t you?” Britt patted his head like a child’s and he fought not to shrink away from it. “When you start…thinking…like that, you need to come talk to me.”

Sander didn’t understand but he nodded. He tried to reconcile it.

At first, when Britt explained that it was just another unhealthy obsession, he’d stood his ground. He’d been proud of himself for looking her in the eye with the truth as he knew it.

She didn’t understand. She never understood. He wondered if she ever really tried.

But then Sander thought, maybe, _he_ was the one who didn’t understand because everything she said about him, everything he’d been feeling and thinking, she knew it. She’d named it. She’d called him out.

“You’re infatuated with the idea of there being someone who won’t limit you, San.” Her eyes had been soft and knowing. “You know you need limits.”

He’d expected her to cry or scream or curse him out when he told her about Robbe. Instead, she’d nodded and taken his hands in hers and spoken to him as if he were naïve.

Maybe he was.

He was so tired of it, but Britt was always right. She knew his thoughts almost better than he did.

“You have to do what’s right, here. Use your head.” She’d tapped his skull as if to hammer the point home.

Sander had let her kiss him on the dance floor and wrap herself in his jacket and, later that night, in his arms. As warm as she had been, he’d been cold. Was still so cold.

And now, he ached. _Ached_. He’d never felt an emptiness like it before. It was as if someone had found a rusty spoon in the burned ruins of an old house and used its dull edge to hollow him out. Or, worse, he’d done it to himself. And to Robbe.

_Robbe must hate me._

Sander missed him terribly, and in a way he didn’t think was possible. He’d only known Robbe for a little while, had only spent a few days rolling around in his mind and basking in his affection. They’d barely even _begun_ to know each other, and yet Sander missed Robbe like a home.

It was enough to make him angry because he’d been fucking fine before he met Robbe Ijzermans. At the very least, he’d been managing. Life without love was manageable, before.

And Sander was sure Robbe had been fine before he had stumbled into Robbe’s life. Never mind that Robbe lit up like the sun when they were together.

Never mind that Sander had experienced quiet for the first time, with him.

Things were what they were, now.

Britt acted as if they were back to normal but there might never be a normal again. Not after Robbe had infused Sander’s every thought with the notion of infinite universes, limitless possibility, and the idea of chance.

No. No. She was right. Thing were as they should be.

After all, Sander had taken a chance and been hurt. Twice. Emotionally by Robbe’s rejection, and then physically by the assholes who’d jumped them. He could see another train wreck on the horizon. Robbe would want to go to the police and Sander couldn’t. He couldn’t. He _could not_.

It was all so fucked because Britt _knew_ this time was different, that the thing with Robbe was different. Different from anything he’d had with anyone else, and different from what he had with her. Sander could see it in her eyes. And he knew she didn’t believe him about the bruises. They were both lying when Sander was used to being the only one.

Sander tried harder because he owed it to her, and to Robbe. Britt had been there for him when no one else had.

And Robbe, well… He obviously deserved better.

But Sander’s fingers kept drifting to the tender spot on his neck, just beneath his ear, where Robbe’s fingers had gripped him gently. His mind kept circling around Robbe’s words, whispered softly against his cheek. “I’m really happy.”

He’d found himself picking up his phone and scrolling through Insta. Had almost unfollowed Robbe but hadn’t been able to pull the trigger. Because he was pathetic. Because he had, for a minute, believed he could have it all.

Sitting in that bar, wrapped in their own little bubble, Sander had watched Robbe open like a flower. He’d meant for the date to be casual, a tentative step into something new. But it hadn’t felt entirely new. It had felt as if they’d been in that bar, at that table, a hundred times before. Yet not. It had felt like the hundredth night of a thousand, but somehow also like the first.

Sander had discovered part of his identity in Robbe’s eyes. Some part of him that he’d locked away and forgotten about, something that Robbe seemed to coax out of him with every touch and smile.

Britt cleared her throat.

Had he been thinking out loud again? Sander shook himself.

It was done. He’d burned the bridge with Robbe and there was no going back. For as much as it had hurt Sander, he couldn’t drag Robbe down with him. He’d already gotten him hurt. Needlessly. Thoughtlessly.

Who knew I love you could also mean goodbye?

Fuck, he was such a waste. Thank God for Britt.

“Are you hungry?”

Sander shook his head. When he felt her gaze on him, he looked up, and that’s when he saw it. Just behind her eyes, the inevitable disappointment. The weight of the burden.

“I had some chips.”

She rolled her eyes. “Chips? You need real food.”

“I’m fine, Bri.”

“Don’t ‘ _I’m fine, Bri’_ me.” She got up and walked over to him, lowering herself into his lap. Crowding into his space that was never really his to begin with.

Sander reluctantly set his pad and pencil aside. He put his arms around her, his muscles feeling stiff. She was all soft. All wrong.

“You’re so stupid, but I love you anyway.” Britt buried her face in his neck, and he fought not to push her away. Fought harder against the urge to cling to her, knowing he wished for another, sturdier frame. Another, deeper, kinder voice in his ear.

“Why?” Sander asked, before he could stop himself.

Britt raised her head to look down at him, her expression almost smug. “Who else would, silly?”

**Author's Note:**

> I have so very many theories about how the rest of Robbe's storyline will go, it's been hard not to write Sander's POV with those assumptions. For now, I'll stick within canon. But, if you know me, you know I'll likely revisit this series after the season ends. Sander intrigues the hell out of me and I know how *I* would write his story.


End file.
